Reasons
by angrymermaids
Summary: The Dragonborn thought she had escaped war for good.


A/N: Originally written for the Skyrim Kink Meme. Most of my SKM fics can be found on AO3.

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><p>The air was silent but for the lazy crackle of a smoldering fire and two people breathing in unison.<p>

Jorrvaskr was never quiet. Shouting, singing, someone getting punched in the face, there was always a background of meaningless noise that meant someone was there. And whoever was there was someone you could count on to stand beside you in a real battle.

Farkas sighed, closed his eyes briefly, and then looked over at Elaname. Her copper eyes were hooded and a heavy lock of dark hair had fallen across her brow. She wouldn't sleep easily, he knew, not since the Underforge. But tonight even he dreaded trying to sleep much as he had before his final trip to Ysgramor's tomb.

She blinked once, slowly, and then lifted her arms and folded them behind her head. She lay with one knee bent, her other foot dangling off the end of the bed. The dying fire outlined her golden skin in light. Farkas, still saying nothing, watched her for a long time, memorizing every detail of her body. The ripple of her stomach muscles every time she breathed in. The subtle sheen of scars, some newer than others. The fine hairs on her thighs, which were starting to prickle from the chill as sweat cooled where it lay in beads between her breasts.

"You cold?" he said at last.

Elaname's head twitched in something that meant _I guess_.

Farkas leaned over and pressed his forehead to hers before getting up to build the fire again. It hissed and popped when he put in a stout pine log that was sticky with dried sap. For a while he crouched before the hearth, watching red-and-orange fingers caress the fresh log like a new lover. Behind, the bed creaked as Elaname shifted, and when he looked over his shoulder, she was on her side, facing him with her hands tucked under her cheek.

Her eyes were unfocused, a small frown creasing her brow. Memory and worry, the two constant wraiths that lurked behind her strength and confidence.

He waited. She would speak, but not if he prompted her to.

Finally, she rolled onto her back again and drew both knees up. Her hands rested lightly on her chest, her fingers absently tracing an old scar on her ribs. An arrow wound, should have been fatal, but the way it had healed—neatly, with the scar forming a clockwise swirl around the puncture—indicated that it had been done with magic. Otherwise a shot like that would have had her choking on her own blood until it drowned her.

"Do you ever dream about the Imperial City burning?" she asked him at last. Her voice was far away and long ago, someplace Farkas had never been and was too young to remember.

"I'm thirty-five," he reminded her gently.

She blinked and focused, and a brief flicker crossed her face. It was the twist of emotions they always kept trying to talk about, usually without success. There would never be anything easy about discussing the century she had on him and how she would continue to live for centuries after he was dead.

"Right," she said. Her voice was fragile. "I forget sometimes."

Farkas tried to joke. "Been married for months. Should probably know how old I am."

It was the kind of joke that hurt to tell and to hear, but Elaname smiled anyway and extended her hand toward him. He straightened up and laced his fingers with hers, and when he rejoined her in bed, the spot where he'd been lying was still warm.

Jorrvaskr was still quiet. They had hours—both too many and too few—before daybreak. Whiterun would be at war before long. They'd done all they could to prepare over the past days, fortifying the walls, making arrows, stockpiling supplies, trying to get the Stormcloaks to call off their attack before they reached the city. No one had really believed that would work, and to no one's surprise, it didn't.

Elaname's large eyes were wide and dark, sharp as iron, fixed on Farkas' face. "I thought I would never have to see war again," she said. "I tried to stop fighting. I couldn't. I was a sellsword. Then a Companion. And now I'm back with the Legion again. How did it follow me here?"

Farkas knew where she came from. She spent long hours telling him about her childhood in Hammerfell and Cyrodiil, her youth in the Legion, the Great War, and the winding road she traveled after her discharge following the Dominion's retreat. In comparison he had nothing to tell, just stories of a brother and a maybe-father and lots of fighting and year after year in this very hall. Not that he wasn't proud of it. But the places she had been and the things she had done had a way of making him want to sit and listen to her instead.

Maybe it was just her. The stories were good, but he had to admit he didn't remember the details as much as he remembered the way she looked and sounded when she told them.

"You didn't have to join up," he said after a moment's hesitation.

"And yet I did. Why."

They fell silent again. Farkas rolled onto his side to face her. When he wrapped his arms around her, she rolled in close and threaded her long fingers through his shaggy hair. The ends of their noses were almost touching, their breath mingling between slightly parted lips. She trapped one of his legs between hers and pulled him closer, rubbing against his thigh just a little. Not even trying to sleep tonight, then.

"Look, El," Farkas said. Had to say it before she distracted him too much and before the fighting started. "I got no love for the Empire. Don't like rules."

"I know that," she retorted, and kissed the corner of his mouth.

"Yeah." He kissed her chin. "You still believe in them. I like that, even if I don't like them much."

She gave him a little smile. "There's not as much to believe in as there used to be."

"Yeah, whatever. You do anyway." He slid his hands down her back, rubbed at her hips, and then stroked up her spine again to rest in her long, wild hair with its little braids and carved beads. "Whoever you fight for, I fight for."

"Even if it was the Stormcloaks?"

"Sure."

"Or the Dominion?"

"Irrelevant. You wouldn't fight for the Dominion."

She gave a little huff of a laugh. "True."

He kissed her again, and this time, neither of them could find anything to say afterward.


End file.
